The babble of voices almost hushed for a moment: the nemet held their women in great esteem. Kurt drew a great gasp of air and shouted across the gathering. “Shan t’Tefur! If you are here, come out and face me. Where is my wife? What have you done with her?”
There was a moment of shocked silence and then a rising murmur like thunder as an aged priest came from the upper steps through the men gathered there. He cleared the way with the emblem of his office, a vine-wreathed staff. The staff extended till it was almost touching Kurt, and the priest spit some unintelligible words at him.
There was utter silence now, drunken laughter coming distantly from the wall-street. In this gathering no one so much as stirred. Even Kurt was struck to silence. The staff extended a degree further and with unreasoning loathing he shrank from it, not wanting to be touched by this mouthing priest with his drunken gods of earth. They held him, and the rough wood of the staff’s tip trembled against his cheek.
“Blasphemer,” said the priest, “sent by Elas to profane the rites. Liar.Cursed from the earth you will be, by the old gods, the ancient gods, the life-giving sons of Thael. Son of Yr to Phan united, Aem-descended, to the gods of ancient Chteftik, cursed!”
“A curse on the lot of you,” Kurt shouted in his face, “if you have any part in t’Tefur’s plot! My wife Mim never harmed any of you, never harmed anyone. Where is she? You people-you! who were in the market today-who walked away-are you all in this? What did they do with her? Where did they take her? Is she alive? By your own gods you can tell me that at least. Is she alive?”
.”No one knows anything of the woman, human,” said the aged priest. “And you were ill-advised to come here with your drunken ravings. Who would harm Mim h’Elas, a daughter of Sufak herself? You come here and profane the mysteries, taught no reverence in Elas, it is clear. Cursed be you, human, and if you do not leave now, we will wash the pollution of your feet from these stones with your blood. Let him go, let go the human, and give him the chance to leave.”
They released him, and Kurt swayed on the steps above the crowd, scanning the faces for one that was familiar. Of Osanef, of any friend, there was no sign. He looked back at the priest.
“She is lost in the city, hurt or dead,” Kurt pleaded. “You are a religious man. Do something!”
For a moment pity or conscience almost touched the stern old face. The cracked lips quavered on some answer. There was a hush over the crowd.
“It is Indras’ doing!” a male voice shouted. “Elas is looking for some offense against the Sufaki, and now they try to create one! The human is Elas’ creature!”
Kurt whirled about, saw a familiar face for the first time.
“He is one of them!” Kurt shouted. “That is one of the men who was in the market when my wife was taken. They tried to kill me and they have my wife-”
“Liar,” shouted another man. “Ver has been at the temple since the ringing of the Into. I saw him myself. The human is trying to accuse an innocent man.”
“Kill him!” someone else shouted, and others throughout the crowd took up the cry, surging forward. Young men, wearing the Robes of Color. T’Tefur’s men.
“No,” cried the old priest, pounding his staff for attention. “No, take him out of here, take him far from the temple precincts.”
Kurt backed away as men swarmed about him, nearly crushed in the press, jerked bodily off his feet, limbs strained as they passed him off the steps and down into the crowd.
He fought, gasping for breath and trying to free hands or even a foot to defend himself as he was borne across the courtyard toward the wall-street.
And the gate was open, and five men of the Methi’s guard were there, dimly outlined in the mist and the flaring torches, but about them was the flash of metal, and bronze helmets glittered under the murky firelight, ominous and warlike.